Indian Parliament in August 2010:
Telling Images of a Shocking Reality

Thanks to climate change, monsoon in India has of late become increasingly erratic. In some parts, it reaches late, in many areas it never shows up. Delhi has its wettest August, Bihar and Jharkhand get the third successive drought. But monsoon or no monsoon, nothing can disturb the annual ritual of monsoon session of Parliament.....Full text

Commentary

Signals from Vijayawada and Lalgarh –
and Challenges before Revolutionary Communists

- Dipankar Bhattacharya

Contrary to media speculations predicting a veritable showdown between the so-called Bengal line and central line in the CPI(M), the Vijayawada ‘mini-Congress’ of the CPI(M) ahead of the crucial West Bengal and Kerala polls of 2011 turned out to be a rather tame affair, saving the real fireworks maybe for a later-day post-mortem. The much-hyped ‘rectification campaign’ was quietly forgotten and the revived ‘anti-Congressism’ on the national level was carefully calibrated by Prakash Kar.....Full text

'Corruption Wealth Games' Scoreboard: Still Counting...

Tapas Ranjan Saha

The Games are proving to be just as spectacular and grand as promised, with all spectators overwhelmed and breathless at the sheer scale and scope of corruption. Referee's Whistle Silenced
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) in a preliminary investigation of Commonwealth Games works has found evidence of pervasive corruption in 16 CWG-related construction works: work was awarded at higher rates and to ineligible agencies, bids have been tampered with, there have been irregularities in issuing of tenders, and needless....Full text

'Honour' Killings –
Worst Form of Feudal Patriarchal Reaction

Kavita Krishnan

A recent study by two Chandigarh-based lawyers Anil Malhotra and Ranjit Malhotra has estimated that more than 1000 'honour' killings take place every year in India. According to this study, the vast majority of such cases (around 900 per year) take place in the regions of Punjab, Haryana, and Western UP. How can we explain this phenomenon? Clearly, such killings, especially in the form (mob murders instigated by khap panchayats) they take in these regions, represent....Full text

Corruption and Crime in Bihar –
the Lalu-Nitish Continuum

DB

Five years ago, in November 2005 Nitish Kumar had won an unexpectedly huge mandate. It is widely believed that three factors militated in favour of Nitish Kumar to give him such a clear and comfortable majority. For one, Bihar was absolutely fed up with Lalu Prasad’s prolonged reign of comprehensive misrule. Secondly, the February 2005 polls had produced a hung Assembly, and six months of President....Full text

Guest

Labour, Labour Everywhere, But Not A Job To Find

Sadanand Patwardhan

(From Countercurrents.org, 19 August, 2010 – Ed/.)

"Three out of every ten of the world’s new workers will be Indian, employing them won’t be easy"- The Economist
ILO has estimated that over 80 million new pair of hands will join the workforce in India during the next decade. Add to this figure another 30 million women if the percentage of them seeking jobs rises to.....Full text

Cover Feature

The All India Left Coordination:

Towards Realignment of Left Forces and Radicalisation of the Left Movement

Dipankar Bhattacharya

Four fighting organizations of the Left – CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM(Punjab), Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) of Maharashtra and Left Coordination Committee (Kerala) – formed an All-India Left Coordination through a joint Convention held in New Delhi on August....Full text

All India Left Convention Held at New Delhi

A day-long All India Left Convention was held on 11 August 2010 at Speaker’s Hall, Constitution Club, New Delhi, jointly sponsored by CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM(Punjab), Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) of Maharashtra and Left Coordination Committee (Kerala). With more than three hundred activists from across the country attending the Convention, the Speaker’s Hall was packed to capacity....Full text

Delhi Declaration
All India Left Coordination

(Adopted at All-India Left Convention sponsored by CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM Punjab, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra, and Left Coordination Committee, Kerala, and held at Constitution Club, New Delhi on 11 August 2010)

Recent years have been witness to an aggressive US imperialism pushing the world into renewed war and occupation as well as an unprecedented financial crisis. In the name of globalisation, imperialism has intensified attempts to appropriate and exploit the natural and human resources of the developing world, but while accentuating exploitation and disparities, globalisation has also led to intensification of all the inherent contradictions of global capitalism and new waves of popular anti-imperialist resistance the world over....Full text

Special Feature

Kashmir: Anatomy of Resistance

The Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once said that the Palestine-Israel conflict was also important in what it revealed about Israeli society, about what Zionism had done to the Jewish psyche. It is, without doubt, in times of extreme stress and conflict that a people, a nation, or just even a political system, both manifests its deepest urges, its driving forces, and its core aspirations. ....Full text

End of the Road for Military Occupation?Parvaiz Bukhari

Before the latest wave of intense mass protests and killings was triggered across Kashmir, a youth narrating his horrifying story of being a witness to state brutality said “Kashmir mein izzat se zinda rehna hai to India se ladtay rehna hai (Living honourably in Kashmir means keep resisting India)”. Echoing the most common sentiment in Kashmir today, he said it was not possible to imagine a life of dignity as a part of India.
Imagine this sentiment continuously confronted....Full text

The Last Option: A Stone in Her Hand

Sanjay Kak

On a summer morning this July in Srinagar, teargas from the troubled streets of Batmaloo began to roll into the first-floor home of Fancy Jan. The 24-year-old went to draw the curtains to screen the room from the acrid smoke, her mother told a reporter later, then turned away from the window, and said: "Mummy, maey aaw heartas fire (my heart's taken fire, mummy)". Then she dropped dead, a bullet in her chest....Full text

National Day Of Solidarity With Kashmiri People

On 20 August 2010, in keeping with a resolution adopted at its founding Convention, the All India Left Coordination (AILC) comprising the CPI(ML) Liberation, the CPM Punjab, the Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra and the Left Coordination Committee Kerala, observed the National Day of Solidarity with Kashmiri People in various important centers of the country. Through protest marches, dharnas and demonstrations left activists across the country declared a strong message of solidarity to the struggling people of Kashmir....Full text

Article

The Present Situation and
The Growing Relevance of Charu Mazumdar

Arindam Sen

Utilising the grotesque activities of Maoists for political attacks on Charu Mazumdar (CM) has become a commonplace in the dominant media, much like blaming Marxism-Leninism for the distortions and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union (no one would hold Ambedkar responsible for the misdeeds of Mayawati though, nor blame Lohia-Jayprakash for those of Laloo-Nitish). Intellectual representatives of class forces ranged against revolution have a motive when they portray CM as the initiator and theorist of a trail of murders – they must not only attack this or that existing organisation, but use every opportunity to discredit and demolish the man who was physically eliminated nearly forty years back, but whose spectre continues to haunt them here, there, everywhere. Also there are people on the Left who describe him as a terrorist/anarchist/left adventurist out of superficial understanding of the questions involved and in some cases because they themselves have vacillating, contradictory attitudes towards re.....Full text

Update

'Naxal' Witch-Hunt
Mirzapur Police Targets CPI(ML) CC Meeting

The CPI(ML) Central Committee held its last meeting at Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, on 1-3 August 2010. Following the meeting, the Mirzapur police has made a deliberate attempt to intimidate the local party leaders in the name of an 'anti-Naxal' offensive.
On 6 August, a police official hand-delivered a letter addressed to Mohammad Salim, the National President of the Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA) and a senior leader of the party in Mirzapur. The letter is signed 'In-Charge....Full text

International

The Rise of the
Far Right in the US

Shashwat Sinha

Shirley Sharrod, an African American woman, was forced to resign in July on charges of racism from her USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) job where she was the Director of Rural Development in Georgia. The decision to let her go came overnight on the basis of an edited video played by the right wing news channel FOX News. The video was originally posted on the internet by a right wing blogger Andrew Breitbart. The edited video showed part of her speech where she said “did not help a white farmer to the fullest extent.” The Democrats and the Republicans joined the chorus of slander against her which abruptly came to an end the very next day when the video of the full speech proved that Sharrod’s words hadl....Full text

Cover

Memorandum on Kashmir Submitted by All India Left Coordination

(The following memorandum was submitted by the leaders of the four constituents of All India Left Coordination on 12 August. Ed/.)

To
The Hon'ble President,
Union of India

Respected Madam,

We the undersigned are deeply disturbed by the situation in the Kashmir Valley, where scores of young people have lost their lives in firing by security forces on street protests. Reports suggest that around 50 people have lost their lives in thisl....Full text

Kashmir Solidarity Letter to PM by UK- and US-based Organisations

(On 20 August, coinciding with the Kashmir Solidarity Day called all over India by the All India Left Coordination, various organisations in the UK and US submitted a letter to the Indian Prime Minister via the Indian High Commission in London. The text of the letter along with signatories is reproduced below. Ed/.)

To
The Prime Minister of India,
Prime Minister's Office
South Block, Raisina Hill, New Delhi, India-110 101.
20 August 2010

Dear Prime Minister,

We the undersigned wish to express our grave concern about the ongoing killings of civilians by security forces on the streets of towns and villages of Kashmir. The brutal murders of more than fifty unarmed people, a majority of them children and teenagers, in the space of two months, demonstrates a complete disregard for the humanity of the Kashmiri people on the part of the security forces who, directed by the Indian state, are acting with complete impunity.....Full text